Hein ter Poorten

Hein ter Poorten (21 November 1887-15 January 1968) was a general of the Netherlands who commanded the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army during World War II.

Biography
Hein ter Poorten was born in Buitenzorg, Dutch East Indies (now Bogor, Java, Indonesia) on 21 November 1887, and he enlisted in the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army in 1908, becoming an artillery officer in 1911. In July 1939, he became Chief of the General Staff of the Royal East Indies Army, and he became its commander after Gerardus Johannes Berenschot died in a plane crash in 1941. He was a skilled commander with a firm understanding of East Indian military affairs, but his relations with the civil administration were poor. In January 1942, a month after Japan declared war on the Netherlands, Ter Poorten became commander of the ABDACOM land forces, and he became the head of Allied forces on Java. On 8 March 1942, he was forced to surrender to the Japanese, and he spent the rest of the war in POW camps. After the war's end in August 1945, he returned to the Netherlands, resigning his KNIL command. He was honorably discharged in February 1946, and he felt that he had been scapegoated for the defeat in the Dutch East Indies. He died in The Hague in 1968 at the age of 80.